Tag: wedding budget

I am a sucker for cute printables and organized systems, and not to toot my own horn, but I am quite an organized person. I love making lists, and I get all giddy when I see my to-do list getting shorter and shorter. Now, staying organized while planning a wedding, I think, is crucial. In this post, I will share with you how I plan to stay organized and keep on top of all the arrangements.

I’ve researched a lot of wedding planning tips and ideas and the wedding binder sounded like the best option. And Tada!!!

My wedding binder was born. In this binder, you will find that I’ve put together all the things I think I would need to stay organized. Let me show you how the planner looks. May I add, I am very proud how it turned out. (please note that all the pages in the binder are in Afrikaans, my home language)

I’ve made the material cover myself. One of my first sewing projects I’ve done with my sewing machine.

When you open the binder, you will find and index. The index gives a summary of the things that is included in the binder. After the index, you will find checklists of things that have to be done for every category. I’ve compiled these lists after researching and reading through a lot of blogs and wedding books and I hope that I have included the most important things for a wedding to run smoothly.

The dividers I’ve made with card stock and some beautiful scrapbooking paper that was on sale at PNA.

After the index and the checklists, you will find the different categories. Let me break it down for you:

Budget and monthly timeline

This, I would think, is self-explanatory.

Ceremony

Here I will have the contact details of the pastor, and the church. (we are planning on asking a pastor that we know, but we want to use another church for the ceremony) I will also include any notes on what kind of décor I want at the church and more important what Wiehann and I want the pastor to talk about at the wedding.

Reception

Here you will find contact details of the place where the reception will be. A list of the music that we want to play, a worksheet of the things that we want to hire for the reception. I will also include pictures of décor ideas and activities for the guests to keep themselves busy while we take some photos. I will also include the contract of the venue here.

Caterer and wedding cake

Here you will find the menu and also the baker’s contact details and pictures of wedding cakes for inspiration. After we select a baker, I will put the contract here as well.

Florist

Florist’s contact details and the contact we will sign with them. I want to include pictures here to explain to the florist what I want and ask him or her if they will be able to do achieve it and give me advice for an alternative flower that I can use if the ones that I want are not available.

Videographer and photographer

Again, contact details and contracts. This category also includes a list of photos and moments I want the photographer and the videographer to capture of our special day.

Bride and groom

Here I include pictures of what I want my wedding dress to look like and ideas for the groom aswell. There is also a checklist of all the attire related items that we need to buy or rent.

Bridal party

I am going to ask our bridal party to buy their own clothes. But here I will keep track of who has what and the gifts I am going to buy for them.

Guests and stationary

Here I will put the final guest list with their contact details and keep track if they have RSVP’d.

I’ve found this cute little notebook on sale at Typo’s and I keep this one in my handbag for random thoughts and notes that might pop into my head. I plan on taking the binder with me to appointments only.

Pens and a calculator will accompany the binder most of the time.

At this stage, I am not sure how much this binder cost me because I’ve had most of the materials already. I’ve created the pages in word and printed it off my home printer.

Phew!!! Information overload I think. I would love to hear what you think of this binder. Would you mind answering a question for me in the comment section below? I would like to know if you would rather buy a binder that is ready made or make one yourself?

Now that we are engaged and we have set a date to get married, I am getting really excited!!! We decided on the 12th of May 2018. So now the wedding planning can start in full swing as the date is a year away.

Let me tell you, I’ve been planning this wedding for a long time, for almost two years to be precise. So, you can just imagine how thrilled I am to get my ideas out of my head and finally into something I can see and touch. My taste has changed considerably the last few years, but I like the end picture that I am seeing for the wedding.

Words that I would describe the wedding I want to have at the end of the day would be: elegant; romantic with a touch of royalty… MMM… maybe that sounds too cliché, but at this stage, I do not care, that is what I want (and luckily, Wiehann has not opposed to any of my ideas yet! Phew!!!).

I’ve decided that I want to start my wedding journey here on the blog. A wedding what? Well, I am glad you asked.

Our wedding journey will be about my planning (and things I do to keep myself organized and sane), my DIY efforts to save money and everything I want to do to make our dream a reality. There will be a new post every two weeks on the blog that I will share my progress and maybe a few tutorials that I’ve followed to create some décor pieces. We will see how it goes.

I am really excited to share this with all of you and hope to give any future brides some tips (and maybe sound advice) and ideas as the planning progress.

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I really appreciate it when you share some of my content! But, please keep in mind that all information and images stay the property of coffeewithnadine.com You may use one or two photos provided that you link back to the original blog post. Please do not crop, edit images or remove watermarks without my consent. All free printables offered on the blog are for personal use only.